How a Temple City councilman was inspired by his grandfather’s life as a Chinese laborer in the U.S.

Temple City Councilman Vince Yu bicycles to Temple City Hall from his home, and has been on the council for five years. Yu was motivated to get involved in local politics largely due to his grandfather's experiences in the U.S., more than a century ago. His grandfather was sold by his family in rural Southern China to be a laborer when he was 13-years-old and remained in this country for more than 30 years. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the grandfather could not buy property in America and ultimately returned to China.(Photo by Walt Mancini/Pasadena Star-News)

TEMPLE CITY >> Councilman Vince Yu often wonders about the life his grandfather had after his family in China sent him — or likely sold him — to be a laborer in the United States when he was just 13 years old.

Chekting Yu came to this country in 1869 and spent more than 3 1/2 decades toiling here likely in farming and possibly on the railroads. Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chekting could not become a U.S. citizen and was not allowed to buy property here. He ultimately returned to China, where he married, had four children and died tragically after his home collapsed in a typhoon.

Grandfather Yu, who hailed from rural Southern China, had rarely spoken of his life in America to his children and died well before Vincent Yu was born. However, it was those mysterious post-Civil War years his grandfather spent in the U.S. that motivated the younger Yu to run for City Council in the San Gabriel Valley more than a century later.

“When people tell me that I don’t belong here, I don’t feel bad to say back to them ‘Hey, my family helped build this country,” said Yu, a Los Angeles County architect who came to this country from Hong Kong in 1979 to attend graduate school in Kansas.

“It’s particularly meaningful to me, and I think it’s a great testimony to our democracy that a grandson of a Chinese coolie, a Chinese laborer, can today be a council member to represent all of us.”

Yu, 57, believes his grandfather worked in the San Francisco area years after the Gold Rush or possibly Honolulu since the locals in China later referred to him as the “Golden Mountain Kid.” He was a tough, obese man with a penchant for hard liquor and cigarettes. He was left for dead twice, once after being severely injured by horse bites in the U.S. and another time when his Chinese village was robbed by bandits and he was either thrown into or tried to hide in a well, Yu said.

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Chekting was living in the country at the time of the Chinese massacre of 1871 that resulted in the lynching of 18 Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, Yu said.

Yu, a former mayor, is the only Asian-American now on the council in Temple City, where about 60 percent of the population is Asian, and is serving his second term. He feels a sense of duty to participate in the political process, he said, to ensure racially motivated bias like the Chinese Exclusion Act or the internment of Japanese-Americans, which took place during World War II, don’t happen here again.

It’s also important to have local officials that represent the opinions of its constituents, something he argues is harder to do if one doesn’t have a deep understanding of their culture, he said.

“(How) would the rest of the non-Asian folks feel if all five of us were Asian and born somewhere else? Would non-Asian residents feel they are adequately represented?” he said. “I think the answer is at some point, you have to have some” Asian-American representation.

Yu sometimes wishes he could return phone calls and emails from Mandarin-speaking constituents in a more timely fashion. As the only council member who speaks the language, these residents often rely on him with their questions and concerns. And for those Asian constituents who want more representation at the local level, he urges them to get more involved in city politics.

“Don’t complain about lack of representation if you don’t come to the table,” Yu said. “While the fact is you’re underrepresented so to speak, you also need to step up your game to be politically active.”